VINYL FORMAT. Having recorded a fistful of critically acclaimed--and increasingly successful--albums with neo-psychedelic pioneers Comets On Fire, frontman Ethan Miller lit out for fresh musical territories somewhere between the Santa Cruz, CA-based band's familiar maelstrom and a more organic, melodic, groove-oriented rock that hearkens back to his halcyon daze growing up on California's "Lost Coast" (Humboldt County), home of lumberjacks, college students, unreconstructed hippies, and off-the-grid botanists. Completing Howlin' Rain is Ian Gradek, Garett Goddard (The Cuts, Colossal Yes), Mike Jackson, Eli Eckert (Drunk Horse), and Joel Robinow (Drunk Horse).

By turns pummeling and pastoral, Howlin' Rain's sophomore Magnificent Fiend oscillates between roaring, all-stops-out, Hammond organ-driven tracks and delicate electric piano passages, topped by harmonized, often dissonant guitar lines. Toss in counter-melodic bass, sometimes quirky breaks, and extended instrumental sequences that ascend to the heavens or cascade softly, softly from the skies in sparkling showers of gunpowder and smoke. It's all held together by Miller's distinctive, crushed-velvet roar--redolent of British R&B giants Steve Marriott or Terry Reid--which extends to a sweet, plaintive falsetto; and, as the album's oxymoronic title might imply, the lyrical content.